"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI

21 May 2017

The Dominican Option

6th Sunday of Easter

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Mt. Carmel/OLR, NOLA

The
world cannot accept the Spirit of Truth b/c the world does not see or
know the Father. The world does not see or know the Father b/c the
world rejected His Christ – the only Way of seeing and knowing the
Father. The world, those in the world, are orphans – bereft of
mother and father, left without a family, a home, a place to be at
peace. They call the world their home, but the world is home to no
one. It lives and moves to serve its own perverse purposes, and eats
alive anyone who makes it their god. You see, the world isn't a
person or a place; it's a spirit, the living principle of rebellion
and disease, the anti-Christ – the opposite of Christ. For
us, Christ lived and died in love so that we might be made heirs to
the Father's kingdom in the Spirit, so that we might dwell in the
Spirit of Truth and find eternal life. The world offers false
promises, dead-end deals, and baits us with the temptation of
becoming gods without God. Christ frees us from sin and death, making
us orphans of the world but not orphans in the world. When
we abide in the Spirit of Truth, dwelling fully in the love of the
Father and Son for one another, we come to know the freedom of the
children of God. That freedom compels us – in word and deed – to
bear witness to Christ and his works.

Now,
we might be tempted to rest on our redeemed laurels and just wait out
the end of the world. We might be tempted to sit pretty atop our
pillar of righteousness and watch the world burn. We could say to the
world, “We got ours. If you want yours. . .come to us.”
This attitude is a recipe for whipping up a big bowl of arrogant
pride. Christ did not command us to find our salvation in him and
then sit back and wait for others to make their way to us
hat-in-hand. His command – “Go out to all the world” – is
unambiguous and final. There is no rest for us if we will be obedient
to our Lord and remain in his love. Divine Love is diffusive by
nature; that is, what Love is spreads around to all as a
matter of Who Love Is. Our salvation through Christ is not a
secret. It's not a treasure to be hoarded. It's not a priceless
commodity to be dribbled out only to the truly deserving. We are left
in this world as children of the Father so that we might be the
living lights of His boundless mercy and love. We are not here to
survive. We're here to thrive – to thrive as vocal, active,
unrelenting witnesses to the power of the Father's offer of
forgiveness to all sinners. Anyone who hears should hear. Anyone who
sees should see. Our job is make sure that those who are of this
world see and hear – from us – all that they need to come to
the Christ.

There's
been a lot in the Catholic news lately about how we should prepare
ourselves to become a cultural minority in the U.S. One option –
called The Benedict Option from the founder of monasticism, St.
Benedict – suggests that we should remove ourselves to culturally
and religiously pure enclaves and ride out the secular storm. In this
model, our task would be to preserve Christian culture as a sort of
seed-plot, a remnant of true-believers who will emerge into a
devastated world to begin again. Our communities will be something
like the Benedictine monasteries of 9th and 10th
century Europe – bastions of learning, culture, and religious
practice. I understand the impulse behind his idea. We're losing
battle after battle in the world, and our once stalwart Catholic
institutions – universities, religious orders, hospitals – have
surrendered to the Spirit of the Age. Renewal and reform from the
ground up is beyond necessary at this point – we're teetering on
the edge of cultural irrelevance and outright persecution. In some
parts of the world, being a Christian is enough to have your head put
on a spike. Retreating and regrouping is not only attractive but it
might our only option in the years to come.

However, as
you might guess, I'm inclined toward another option. Let's call it
The Dominican Option. The Order of Preachers was found in 1216 by St.
Dominic de Guzman to preach the Good News and care for souls. He
founded the Dominicans as a hybrid order – part monastic, part
diocesan – so that the friars might live in community like monks
but serve in the world like diocesan priests. The Dominican option is
faithful to Christ's command that we “go out to all the world”
and at the same time allows us to maintain the boundaries of our
Catholic identity without compromise. In effect, we come to see
ourselves as Christ's Viruses, inflecting the world body with the
Good News of the Father's grace and mercy. Viruses are adaptable when
attacked. They evolve with the environment without ceasing to be what
they are. Viruses are even capable of altering their environment when
they reach a critical mass. What we bring to the world as Christ's
Viruses is a 2,000 year old intellectual, spiritual, pastoral, and
humane tradition of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. The Church is not
charged with preserving our tradition for the sake of tradition;
we're charged with using our tradition for the sake of preaching of
the Good News and the care of souls.

The
Dominican Option for the Church takes Peter's admonition seriously,
“Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an
explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope. . .”
It's not clear to me how we can give an explanation for our hope from
behind a wall. The Christian's explanation for his/her hope must be
given in the public square – at work, the mall, the bank, in the
schools, at home, wherever a Christian happens to be, there the
explanation must be given. If you abide in the love of Christ, your
explanation will be the words and deeds of your daily life. The
Spirit of Truth will abide with you and see that you are not
troubled.

NB. I want to be absolutely clear here that I am in no way denigrating the monastic life. Dominic founded the nuns before he founded the friars b/c he knew that the friars would need some powerful spiritual support in their ministry. The options being discussed in the media are suggesting various ways that the whole Church might be reconfigured for reform. Turning the whole Church into a monastery is my target here.